Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms.

Cheese consists of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. It is produced by coagulation of the milk protein casein. Typically, the milk is acidified and addition of the enzyme rennet causes coagulation. The solids are separated and pressed into final form. Some cheeses have molds on the rind or throughout. Most cheeses melt at cooking temperature.

Hundreds of types of cheese are produced. Their styles, textures and flavors depend on the origin of the milk (including the animal's diet), whether they have been pasteurized, the butterfat content, the bacteria and mold, the processing, and aging. Herbs, spices, or wood smoke may be used as flavoring agents. The yellow to red color of many cheeses is from adding annatto.

For a few cheeses, the milk is curdled by adding acids such as vinegar or lemon juice. Most cheeses are acidified to a lesser degree by bacteria, which turn milk sugars into lactic acid, then the addition of rennet completes the curdling. Vegetarian alternatives to rennet are available; most are produced by fermentation of the fungus Mucor miehei, but others have been extracted from various species of the Cynara thistle family.

Cheese is valued for its portability, long life, and high content of fat, protein, calcium, and phosphorus. Cheese is more compact and has a longer shelf life than milk. Cheesemakers near a dairy region may benefit from fresher, lower-priced milk, and lower shipping costs. The long storage life of some cheese, especially if it is encased in a protective rind, allows selling when markets are favorable.

Noun

cheese (usually uncountable; plural cheeses)

1. (uncountable) A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk.
2. (countable) Any particular variety of cheese.
3. (countable) A piece of cheese, especially one moulded into a large round shape during manufacture.
4. (uncountable, colloquial) That which is melodramatic, overly emotional, or cliché, i.e. cheesy.
5. (uncountable, slang) Money.
6. (countable, slang, baseball) A fastball.
7. (uncountable, slang) A dangerous mixture of black tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM tablets. The resulting powder resembles grated cheese and is snorted.
8. (vulgar, slang) Smegma.

• See also Wikisaurus:cheese

Cheese

Quotes concerning Cheese.

• Like chalk and cheese.
  • An expression meaning completely different.

• A meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman who lacks an eye.
  • Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

• A slice of pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.
  • Stephen King, Firestarter

• How can you govern a country where there are 246 different types of cheese?
  • (attributed to Charles de Gaulle)

• Moe, Larry, cheese!
  • Curly Joe, The Three Stooges

• I eat swiss cheese from the inside out. ~ Steven Wright

• Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
  • G. K. Chesterton

• Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese -- toasted, mostly.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson

• There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.

• To cut the cheese
  • a euphemism for flatulence.

• It ain't easy being cheesy.
  • Chubby Cheese

• Life is like a block of cheese, hard and smelly
  • Anonymous

• [Cheese can] restore an old love and ... ripen a young one.
  • Casanova, Histoire de ma vie.

• The moon is made of a green cheese.
  • John Heywood, Proverbs.

• Cheese! Why won't it stop flirting with me?
  • Joss Whedon, Whedonesque.com.

• I eat cottage cheese for dinner, with salt and pepper!
  • Dave Chappelle,

• "'Why did you yell, 'Cheese'?' And The Man would tell him mockingly, 'Because I felt like it, you stupid machine of poo." Breakfast of Champions (Chapter 16) Kurt Vonnegut